Warsaw, 11 April 1946
To the attention of
District Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes Leszno Street 53
Regarding the hospital at Długa Street 7
Since I have been unable to find any press coverage of the matter mentioned below, I hereby take the liberty of sending the following information.
I do not know whether the Honorable Commission is aware of the events that unfolded on 2 September 1944 in the hospital that was organized during the Uprising in the Old Town at Długa Street 7, that is in the building of the Ministry of Justice.
There were some 500 wounded people at the hospital (soldiers and a small number of civilians). On the day the Old Town capitulated, 2 September, Germans from the SS and “Ukrainians” burst into the building. The doctors and female paramedics were ordered to leave the premises and then led away together with the residents of nearby houses.
The less severely wounded people were instructed to proceed to the courtyard, where they were murdered in a beastly manner, and their bodies burnt on a pyre. Next, the murderers went to the upper storeys and dispersed among the rooms, finishing off the wounded people who were present there. Finally, they came down to the basements, where a great number of critically wounded were lying. They started finishing them off. They killed nearly all of them. However, a dozen or so wounded people survived in the basement, for they managed to hide under beds or the corpses. Finally the Germans left, setting fire to the building. The upper storeys burned down completely, while the basements survived.
The next day female paramedics from another hospital (at Krakowskie Przedmieście Street) obtained permission from the Germans to send a small rescue party to the Old Town. Among the people rescued from the rubble there were the dozen or so people from the basements of the hospital at Długa Street 7, and they were transferred to the Carmelite church in Krakowskie Przedmieście Street.
Even a few months after the liberation one could visit the basements of the building at Długa Street 7 and see the tragic image of several dozen bodies lying in their beds or on mattresses, resembling embalmed black mummies in clothes or underwear, with parts of their bodies bandaged and plastered. Charred logs of wood and a pile of human bones and ashes lay in the courtyard.
Since the case of this hospital is very well known to many doctors and female paramedics who worked both there and in other hospitals, I am surprised that it has not been mentioned and investigated. Now it will be more difficult to examine, for reportedly the bodies were taken from the basements during mass exhumations that were carried out in the vicinity of Miodowa Street and Krasińskich Square.
In my opinion this case should be made public through the press as soon as possible, and the doctors, female paramedics and the dozen or so wounded people who survived in the basements (and who immediately after the Uprising were in the hospital in Milanówek) should be summoned to provide detailed and exhaustive testimonies.
Among others Father Rostworowski, a Jesuit, who survived and lives to this day, was closely connected with this hospital and the events that occurred there.
It was said that very detailed lists of the wounded who were present in this hospital during the Uprising were kept there.
Bringing all of the details of this case to light would without doubt help many families find traces of their loved ones who went missing during the Uprising, and would also let the world know of yet another bloody crime perpetrated by the Hitlerite thugs.
I do not know the present condition of the building at Długa Street 7. I think, however, that it should be duly taken care of and honored as the place where Polish heroes met a bloody death.
My information is derived from data obtained from a wounded man who was among the dozen or so survivors and after the Uprising stayed at the hospital in Milanówek, and also from numerous female paramedics who worked at the hospital at Długa Street 7.
Unfortunately, at the present moment I am unable to submit their names or addresses, for I do not know them.
I think that all of this data is credible. It may only be inexhaustive.
I visited the basements of the hospital after the city had been liberated and saw the terrible sight with my own eyes.
Janina Orlińska